[code]Curator page here-->[url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/37670120/] DaRevieweD #209 [/url]<-- [i]New review every week[/i][/code]
[h1]"IT’S PRONOUNCED DEATH BLEW-!!"[/h1]
[u] Here's The Thing:[/u]
You first play as ??, who is en route with his partners to a crime scene that was radioed in. You are reluctant, but your teammates and their macho games, choose to investigate the sus graveyard instead. 48 hours later, you play as Rachel, who must clean up the mess you get from disobeying a direct order~
[h1] ! DISCLAIMER ![/h1]
(1) I was very excited to play this, but I knew something was up when the devs first delayed the game by months, AND kept radio silence on their progress. (2) I gave them two weeks to fix things, but the game is still as broken and in a sorry state as before. (3), I’m convinced most of the reviews were bought or unreasonable; this game shouldn’t have gotten a “very positive” rating. Only the negative reviews (mine included) + a minority of the positives + those who finished it, tell the whole truth~
[h1][u][+] PROS;[/u][/h1]
[h1]:) B-MOVIE-GAME AT ITS FINEST~[/h1]
To call it gameplay would be a disservice to games out there, but I must label it something! It’s a very bare-bones 3rd person survival horror, the likes of [b]RE Operation Raccoon City,[/b] only worse… but we’ll get to that! Anyway, the shooter parts are functional albeit simplistic; literally all you do is grab some guns, outflank zombies, bang a few times, reload said guns, and chase down objective markers.
Now the parts I liked- you can sprint forwards & backwards as you aimed down sight, that was something, and it suited the action which could get rather frenetic! It came off like a so-good-it’s-bad (but really it’s just bad) b-movie that was very rigid in its pacing. There was also… its brevity, although believe me, it felt longer than it actually was. Not much else to point out, except it’s a one-off experience that should last upwards of 2.5 hours and with no new game+ or anything of that sort. Praise the higher power for that~
[u]TIPS:[/u]
1) Holster your gun first before picking up things and doing other stuff.
[h1]:) EVERYTHING ELSE THEY RUSSIAN; NOT THIS![/h1]
When it comes to visuals, I’ve never been really picky but- with the exception of the environments and iffy textures, it fared pretty well especially for a b-game! A handful of location changes, snazzy cutscenes to hold your gaze, and… yeah! Sure, some character models look ridiculously alike and you go through the same few enemies quicker than overnight pizza. However, it never occurred to me that I should gouge my eyes out or anything as a result of them. I mean, the rest of the game took care of that!
The team makes no attempt to hide their fanaticism of Resident Evil; a character looks like Raymond from [b]Revelations[/b], three others were named after people from that series, and the story oozes of the 2002 live action movie but also [b]The Evil Within[/b] in plot structure! The “zombieness” screams [b]The Walking Dead[/b] and [b]The Last of Us[/b]. That said, the premise itself is novel-ish, not that it has much to say~
[h1][u][-] CONS;[/u][/h1]
[h1]:( LOADING SCREEN? TRY OVERLOADING![/h1]
It sounds as if I’m faulting this title due to its overreliance on cutscenes & loading screens (CLS), but it’s mainly directed at its cunning snail-paced intro where nothing worthwhile happens. Playing out like a drawn-out movie, only they have you control the character just for the sake of having even the slightest feel of agency… with the actual gameplay only popping off 40-50 minutes in.
It would’ve been fine if it’s confined to just the start, but these “non-game sections” are scattered across its whole length. Often requiring little to no input besides picking up a single item, talking to ONE person or killing one/two enemy; before another CLS takes over! So, my god, why!? I’ll tell you why, it knows that if it showcased its meatier bits early on, nobody would stick around... It’s no coincidence that the progression goes from “polished af” to, “chipped-off polish”, and finally "no polish whatsoever"~
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2908267873
[h1]:( STANDARDS? THEY BE-LOW… SO. VI. ET.[/h1]
The gunplay is in desperate need of a massive overhaul, because what you aim at WON’T necessarily be what you fire at! Multiple enemies charge at you at the same time? Bullets ricochet everywhere except where you want it to land. These moments worsened by the jittery locomotion that is the whirlwind of frustration posed by the player character, hopped-up-on-sugar enemies, and uncooperative camera!
The mechanics are also all seemingly against you, what with there being no accurate health gauge, no quick weapon swap, prompting comes and goes, and how the game cannot tell apart headshots from grazes by treating them the same yet indiscernible…
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2908265939
[h1]:( NOWHERE TO GO BUT DOWN~[/h1]
This next one is a conglomerate of cons, the first being the environments, which was varied and rosy up until the budget depleted. Then sections of the very same underground lab-prison were cut-and-pasted to disastrous effect becoming one giant unrecognizable mess!
The voice-acting wasn’t too terrible- if you’re hearing-impaired that is. The weirdest part? The more capable voice talents took on secondary roles; whereas the leads either got stuck with thick accents or not knowing which words to enunciate. It’s possible the team badly spliced together lines to fit the animations of the lips. Super funny overall, until you must relive certain conversations over and over…
This adaptation of the notorious Russian Sleep Experiment lasted approximately 5 minutes and two exposition bombs, with the rest of the game simply existing so you have something to “survive”! I’m already dreading as to how the sequel will hope to pick things up~
[h1]:( THAT’S QUITE A DROP… IN QUALITY.[/h1]
I don’t usually factor bugs in the scoring, but I don’t see any way around it for this title. Half the time, the bugs are either game-breaking, which amounts to restarting a past checkpoint, or aggravating to the highest degree that you just want to self-lobotomize.
Let’s face facts, it’ll take a saint to get through this without spamming-pounding on the “E” key, and making fists as you puff out red smoke… The audacity of the devs to originally price this at 20+ bucks (now ¼ of that) when it wasn’t even playtested is the biggest crime here~
[h1]BUGS:[/h1]
x Many times where I just up-and-died for no reason…
x Catapulted out of a moving elevator. RIP. Restart!
x Interaction prompts don’t work. Spam and pray they trigger.
x Limbs and entire bodies of dead undead flagellate.
x Philip(?) will get stuck (becoming unavailable to help you) somewhere if you backtrack.
x Some parts/enemies weren’t even programmed?
x Enemies (and player character) can climb the most ridiculous things if you press space.
x Bathroom stall limbo.
x Various instances of full-on floating objects, partially touching ones, and textures caressing each other.
x The rest can be found in the comments~
[h1]NITPICKS:[/h1]
~ More saves needed.
~ Typos in the subtitles; even the “to be continieu”. Some Russian text left untranslated.
~ AI-controlled partners all walk in the same way & rhythm.
~ Some objects’ prompts and icons get reused.
~ Gun gets holstered when you drop a few feet.
~ Missing sound effects.
~ Ammo reserves text competes with the closed captions.
~ Crouch delay.
[h1]"AND IT DID; CHUNKS EVEN~"[/h1]
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2908269831
[u]Last Words?[/u]
Survival horror that’s more b-movie zombie flick interspersed with morsels of interactivity. Fun got shot early on, story left for dead by the middle, and the end- everything about it was below par~
[h1]2.5 / 10[/h1]
[code]A key was provided by the developer [b]Marsoft.[/b][/code]
